Benzyl Cinnamate

What Benzyl Cinnamate smells like

Benzyl cinnamate has a sweet, balsamic odour and a honey-like taste, in chemical references. Fragrance suppliers add floral and spicy facets — sweet, spicy and floral with a powdery balsamic nuance, or creamy and slightly floral with a hint of spice — and one lists its odour as sweet, balsamic and very weak. It is a quiet base note and a mild fixative, used in heavy, oriental perfumes and floral-amber bases. It occurs in Peru and tolu balsams.

Leading note

Soft sweet balsam

Supporting facets

Powdery

Faint facets

Floral, spicy

Character

Faint, soft, creamy, tenacious

• balsamic
• sweet
• faint

What makes Benzyl Cinnamate distinctive

Balsam with almost no voice: a faint, creamy sweetness that holds other notes rather than being smelled itself.

How Benzyl Cinnamate is used

Used as a mild fixative in oriental, amber and floral-amber bases, and in balsam reconstructions.

Typical role: fixative (slow to evaporate; helps a blend last and holds lighter notes).

How Benzyl Cinnamate differs from similar materials

Cinnamyl Cinnamate

Cinnamyl cinnamate is even fainter and more resinous, with jasmine and rose; benzyl cinnamate is a creamy, slightly spicy balsam.

Peru Balsam Oil*

Peru balsam contains benzyl cinnamate and benzyl benzoate, and adds vanilla, cinnamon and amber; benzyl cinnamate alone is a faint, creamy balsam. (compared directly by a cited source)

Cinnamyl Acetate

Cinnamyl acetate is a clearly perceptible warm, sweet floral; benzyl cinnamate is a faint, creamy fixative.

An asterisk marks a difference that a cited source states directly. The others compare the published descriptions of each material. Smell varies with grade, supplier and dilution; compare them side by side on blotters before substituting one for another.

Formulation considerations

A low-melting solid; a declarable allergen covered by an IFRA Standard.

Identity and classification

Type

Aroma chemical

Origin

Occurs in nature

Odour family

Amber / Gourmand

Note position

Base note

Physical form at room temperature

Solid

CAS number

103-41-3

Molecular formula

C16H14O2

Molecular weight

238.28 g/mol

IUPAC name

benzyl (E)-3-phenylprop-2-enoate

The CAS number, formula and molecular weight are taken from PubChem compound 5273469, whose own record lists this CAS number; checked 19 October 2026.

Safety and compliance

The IFRA Standards Library lists a Standard covering Benzyl Cinnamate:

• "Benzyl cinnamate" — Restriction, 49th Amendment, published 2020-01

Limits differ by product category and are set out in the Standard itself; this page does not reproduce them. The list above reflects the library as read on 19 October 2026.

Benzyl Cinnamate is one of the 26 fragrance allergens listed individually in Annex III of the EU Cosmetics Regulation (label name: Benzyl cinnamate), which must be named on cosmetic labels above 0.001% in leave-on and 0.01% in rinse-off products. Regulation (EU) 2023/1545 extended the list; see the fragrance allergens list.

Hazard classification of the neat substance, as PubChem summarises it, read 26 October 2026. Companies notifying the ECHA C&L Inventory classify it (1,794 reports): H317 may cause an allergic skin reaction (99.8% of reports); H411 toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects (99.5% of reports). A skin sensitiser classification concerns handling the neat material and the dose in a finished product; the IFRA Standards, where they apply, set the limits. Unless it is harmonised, this is the notifiers' own classification, not a binding one.

This page is general information, not a safety assessment or a specification. Confirm identity, composition, IFRA status and allergen content from your supplier's documents for the lot you hold.

Materials it works with

• Tolu Balsam Resinoid

  Resinoid · Amber / Gourmand — balsamic, cinnamic, vanillic, sweet

• Benzoin Resinoid (Siam)

  Resinoid · Amber / Gourmand — vanillic, balsamic, sweet, warm

• Vanillin

  Aroma chemical · Gourmand / Amber — vanilla, sweet, creamy

Benzyl Cinnamate is also suggested as a partner on the pages for Cinnamyl Acetate, Cinnamyl Alcohol, Cinnamyl Cinnamate, Ethyl Cinnamate and Phenylethyl Cinnamate.

Used in formulas and accords

Used in 2 published formulas

Benzyl Cinnamate is an ingredient in 1 perfume formula and 1 accord in the Formula & Accord Library.

Community formulas

• Vintage Amber Accord

  Community Formula · Accord

RUŌOD House Originals

Original compositions by RUŌOD House.

• Resin Atlas

  RUŌOD House Original

Further reading

• Building an Amber Accord: Labdanum, Balsams and Vanilla

  What amber means in perfumery (not ambergris, not fossil amber), its building blocks, an illustrative accord, and practical issues of color and sweetness.

Questions about Benzyl Cinnamate

Sources

• PubChem — compound 5273469, checked 19 October 2026.
• PubChem — GHS classification (the ECHA C&L Inventory notifications and any harmonised EU entry), read 26 October 2026.
• IFRA — Standards Library, read 19 October 2026.
• EUR-Lex — Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, Annex III.
• ChemicalBook — benzyl cinnamate (CAS 103-41-3) — odour database.
• Perflavory (The Good Scents Company) — benzyl cinnamate — odour database.
• Fraterworks — benzyl cinnamate — distributor's description.
• Olfactory profile: the RUŌOD Lab team's synthesis of the published descriptions above, reviewed 20 October 2026. Evidence: more than one published description. Classification and the short description: revision 1. Descriptions of odour are judgement, not measurement.